Moots’ Point: For Premium Bike Maker, It’s Titanium or Bust

Moots moved into its new building on the outskirts of town in 2001. The building includes a showroom and apartments for visiting VIPs.

Willy Keane works in the mitre shop, shaping tubes and joints.

A seat tube strut for an MX RXL mountain bike. Everything about the bikes is painstakingly crafted and gorgeous to behold.

Notes are scribbled on the mitre machine as seat tube struts are cut.

Machinist Evan Soard and his companion Baxter keep an eye on CNC operations. About 70 percent of the CNC work has been brought in house over the last five years.

Titanium bikes are Wired. So too is the factory where they're built, as this scene shows.Toys in the finishing shop.

This Mooto X RSL frame is one of many hanging in Moots' showroom. It's a no-compromise 29er XC racer with a Press Fit 300 bottom bracket and oversized headset. It's one hot ride.Follow these simple directions and you too can build a Moots MX Divide dual suspension 29er.

Caleb Franklin, lead welder, Mike Sanders, director of operations, and Mark Rasmussen, welder, have a quick meeting in the welding department.Caleb Franklin, lead welder, lays a bead so gorgeous it should be in a gallery. Using argon gas to create a oxygen-free welding environment, each frame is handled with kid gloves — white gloves, actually — to keep contaminates to a minimum.

The coveted Moots head badge. You can't get one unless you buy a frame. We asked.

The finishing department is where frame alignment is checked one last time, head tubes and bottom brackets are prepped, frames are bead-blasted and the decals are applied. Then the frames get a final once-over and the famous yellow tag is initialed before the frame is boxed.

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colorado — Three things cross my mind as I chase Rob Mitchell up the single-track known as the Emerald Mountain Trail that overlooks this gorgeous mountain town.

First, the air is thin, and I am not. I should have stuck to my training plan and diet. Second, wolfing down that gargantuan burger at the Double Z BBQ joint before the ride was a really bad idea. Finally, you would think someone with the title “company president” would spend a lot more time behind his desk and a lot less time messing around in the dirt.

After spending the better part of the morning touring high-end bike manufacturer Moots, I am attempting to gulp enough oxygen to survive this ascent, while Mitchell continues our conversation in his relaxed, soft-spoken demeanor. My gasping makes it clear I am no longer interested in hearing about his company and its obsession with titanium in a carbon-mad industry, and he rides away from me as if I am tied to one of the beautiful aspens.

Mitchell personifies Moots: His riding style and personality are just like the smooth, supple ride of a titanium bike. He and the gang at Moots, which was founded here in 1981, have just returned from the bike show slog and by all the important benchmarks are doing well heading into 2013. This is both exciting and surprising, given that during my extensive tour of the factory I didn’t see much of the material that has become de rigueur in the bike biz these days: carbon fiber.

The factory was filled to the brim with titanium, which is odd these days. Not long ago, titanium was all the rage. Companies like Merlin and Litespeed were building lust-worthy steeds from the stuff, which had trickled down from the aerospace industry. Frame builders and riders loved it because it was light yet strong, it provided a silky-smooth ride and it was impervious to the elements. You could get titanium bikes from Eddy Merckx or GT or Lemond or insert bicycle company name here, and everyone was making titanium parts the weight weenies lusted after. Anyone with disposable income happily paid a premium for the miracle material.

And then they didn’t.

Almost as quickly as it came, titanium went as the bike industry embraced carbon fiber. As the price of carbon bikes — often made in Taiwan or China — came down, everyone abandoned titanium. Everyone but Moots.

“We just stuck to the path,” said Mitchell.

The company has, since 1990, built nothing but titanium bikes. It plans to build about 1,500 this year, from the Vamoots road bike and Psychlo ‘cross bike to the Mooto 29er, a couple of 26-inch mountain bikes and even Frosti, a giant-tired snow bike. Don’t want a new bike? No problem. You can get a little titanium magic with a Moots seatpost or stem.

This isn’t to say the company didn’t consider straying from its path. During the darkest days, when it seemed carbon might rule the world, Moots experimented with all sorts of titanium-carbon mash-ups, but such plans didn’t go far. The company stayed the course. While other bicycle manufacturers built various combinations of titanium, chromoly and carbon fiber, Moots stuck to its game plan.

“They have a very rich and focused history/legacy: ‘This is what we did, this is what we do and this is what we are going to do,'” said Jeff Selzer, the general manager at Palo Alto Bicycles. “Moots has stuck to their guns and more power to them.”

And now Moots is, with the cost of a high-end carbon fiber bicycles continuing to climb, positioning itself as a value brand.

Sitting atop a bluff overlooking Steamboat Springs as a storm blows in, it is hard to imagine describing the Mooto X YBB lying at my feet as being a value. It is a thing of beauty, no doubt, made entirely by hand by the folks at the factory not far from where I’m standing. The bike, as I rode it, would run you something in the neighborhood of $7,800. Far more than you’d pay for an entry-level ride, but far less than a similarly spec’d carbon fiber rig. And you have your choice of colors, too.

“You can have any color you want,” said Selzer. “As long as it is natural titanium.”

Every Moots begins with the arrival, from one of two U.S. mills, of giant crates holding long, glimmering tubes of titanium. The crates look like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Most of the tubes that comprise a Moots are hand-cut, bent into their sexy shapes at room temperature, double pass welded, bead blasted and then yellow tagged for delivery down there in Steamboat Springs. It takes six to eight weeks to turn a pile of tubes into a frame, with about nine man-hours going into each one.

Speaking of down there, the time has come to rip back into town. The fall colors are in full effect, and my descent through a stunning aspen forest carpeted with leaves, makes my huffing and puffing up the mountain worthwhile. After an afternoon on a Moots, it’s easy to understand the cult-like following the bikes have and to believe the people who, given half a chance, will prattle on and on about the amazing build quality, ride characteristics and impressive customer service. But most of all, what you remember is the comfort.

“You can not make a carbon frame as comfortable as a titanium frame,” says Selzer.

It is true you can make a carbon frame that is lighter and stiffer than a titanium frame, but as Selzer notes, at some point comfort takes precedence over weight and stiffness. At that point, comfort becomes a value all unto itself.

I catch a quick shower in one of the luxurious apartments atop Moots headquarters, a space they have reserved to wine and dine their devoted dealers. As I say my good-byes, I ask if I might thank Mitchell for a great ride. I’m politely told he’s back at his desk on a call. I’m sure.

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